The Rahul effect: Maya suspends 22 govt officials

At least 22 Uttar Pradesh government officials have been suspended for their alleged bungling of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) funds.

The issue came to limelight when Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi raised the alleged irregularities in the top Centre-run scheme. The remarks have provoked chief minister Mayawati to order action against her officials, sources said.

Congress spokesman Subodh Srivastava, however, termed it "eyewash" in view of the suspected huge volume of pilferage across the state.

"Each of the suspended officials was junior functionaries, while no action was taken against any senior official, without whose connivance the bungling could not have been accomplished," said Srivastava.

While Rahul has sought to pointedly draw the government's attention to irregularities in Sultanpur, which covers his Amethi parliamentary constituency, the state eventually found large-scale bungling in four other districts as well. These were Gonda, Balrampur, Chitrakoot and Mahoba.

While a sum of Rs 1 crore was found to have been used out of NREGS funds in Gonda to purchase toys and calendars, a similar amount was diverted towards purchase of sub-standard tents and first-aid boxes in Balrampur.

Likewise, as many as 700 digital cameras were purchased for Rs 60 lakh in Chitrakoot and 247 steel cupboards were bought in Mahoba. It was suspected that many of these purchases were made only on paper, as not more than 25 per cent of the cameras and cupboards could be traced on physical verification, according to a departmental official.

Interestingly, the UP government got into action only after the Union Rural Development ministry sought details of measures initiated by the state against reported irregularities in the implementation of NREGS here. The ministry had sought personal appearance of UP rural development principal secretary Sri Krishna, whose own track record was allegedly quite "shady".

What apparently compelled the UP government to get into the act was Rahul's insistence at a district-level meeting on NREGS in Sultanpur on March 26, to get the suspected irregularities probed by a central agency in case the state failed to take appropriate steps.

UP Rural Development Minister Daddu Prasad, however, refused to give  any credit to Rahul.

"We initiated action into the matter because our chief minister told us to proceed; and even earlier we have got FIRs registered in 29 districts against as many as 60 gram pradhans (village heads) and 30 panchayat officers", he said.